Hi all,
Despite what has been written on the usual negative web sites even when we do well the blog takes some time to do, this is because "we are busy".
So the weekends racing wrap up.
We had 19 cars turn up, 3 were 360's and one whatever (sorry Mark).
The track was a grease pit for engine starts and yours truly embarrassed himself with a near spin in turn 2 at just above idle, stalled the car and had to wait for a restart, did my best to hide but there was not enough room in the car for that.
Hot laps were still slow with the greasy high line and 2 cars also had small skirmishes in the same spot as me, one hitting the wall and the other just spinning.
There was no real pace in the hot lap sessions.
Heat one had Michael Armstrong making contact with the pit gate after a component failure on his front end, Todd Davis won from Glen Oliver and Gavin Davis.
Heat 2 was more of the same with the Zeminuck car suffering from a hard hit to the backstraight wall.
Wade Randell won from Phil Blackman and Ian Dhu.
Heat 3 and the track was juiced up and hooky as but the water cart put some water on the highline stopping the usual fast suspects being able to use it.
Annette Crabbe was hit in the rear by Troy Craig with both being put out, Troy for the night and Annette just for the heat.
Cale Sotiroff won from Darren Higgins and Todd Davis third.
Heat 4 and the high line had come on, there was some jostling for position before the start with the inside car on pole determined to be on the hooky surface not the slick black, after a false start the heat had no mishaps and was run green to checker.
Steve Crabbe won from Mark Miller and Damien Joyce in third.
So into the feature we went.
16 cars with the top 6 inverted.
Damien Joyce was off pole, Glen Oliver was off 2, Ian Dhu was off 3, Not sure about 4, I was off 5, Not sure about the rest but Todd Davis was off 9 after pulling the 9 ball to invert the field.
Glen Oliver had the race under control for the first 13 laps including a few restarts, but on the restart after lap 13 team owner Steve Crabbe had to let Glen know that his bum should have been hot as his rear inside brake disc was molten, as Glen pulled to the infield he realised that his bum was in fact hot and he summoned the fire crew for some cold liquid relief.
Gavin Davis resumed in the lead and led for another few laps until his car spluttered and ran out of fuel, the toolbox was not going to be Glen's or his.
I was into third and ready to pounce, on the restart I realised that running the top line was getting harder and tried to move to the bottom, but each time had to go back to the top, Damien Joyce with a glint in his eye and one hand on the tool box stayed out in front and was a deserving winner in his "JEI" as he pointed out to me in the pits later, Todd Davis was in second and I came home in third.
Feature placings.
Damien (Watch the JEI go) Joyce
Todd Davis
Steve Crabbe
Highlights of the night;
* Got to say it was great to get through with no motor woes and no wreckage on the 77car, we have found some pace and just need to get by the slower cars quicker.
* Glen Oliver showed why he has my State Title dark horse vote, but still has to work the traffic better, although he was running high and lapping cars 3 at a time in the feature.
* Annette Crabbe started tentatively but by the feature was gassing it up, highlight of her night was passing 3 cars on one corner.
* Cale Sotiroff ventured south and won a heat.
* Ian Dhu came out of his self imposed hiatus and was quick.
* Darren Higgins almost won his first heat but was passed on the finish line.
No real lowlights, we are all just looking forward to the state title showdown at Bunbury.
Bring on Kwinana on the 12th, hope to see a good turnout.
Crabby
